Joseph Berkmann has angrily denied allegations that Georges Duboeuf topped up his best wines with inferior ones.
The chairman of Berkmann Wine Cellars, the sole UK agent for Duboeuf, issued a statement refuting the allegations, and claimed that national newspaper reports were based on inaccurate' stories in the French press, which had ubsequently
been withdrawn.
Bodegas Hidalgo-La Gitana, the Sherry house responsible for La Gitana Manzanilla, has joined the Mentzendorff portfolio in an exclusive arrangement.
Read more...Standing on the banks of the tranquil river Charente by Chteau Courvoisier in Jarnac, who would have thought that the fortunes of the Cognac category could have been turned around by a handful of American hip-hop artists? After years in the doldrums, along with the likes of whisky, adrift while the white spirits - vodka, white rum and tequila - continued their seemingly inexorable rise, Cognac finally received the sort of ringing endorsement that money just can't buy - not even with the big budgets of LVMH (Hennessy); Seagram, now Pernod Ricard (Martell); and Allied Domecq, now Fortune Brands (Courvoisier).
Read more...PLB Group, the own-label wine specialist, has bought wine company Lane & Tatham for an undisclosed sum.
East Sussex-based PLB - which has tried hard in recent years to increase its presence in the branded-wine sector - now moves into fine wines for the first time. Lane & Tatham will continue to run as a separate business, operating as the fine-wine subsidiary of the company.
The new managing director of Wines of Argentina (WoA) is Fernando Farr.
Farr has a marketing background, and worked with L'Oral for nearly eight years, both in Argentina and abroad. He replaces marketing manager Bernardo Hoffmann.
Hardys, the UK's number-one off-trade wine brand, is set to launch a new cinema advertising campaign later this month under the Best Wine Under The Sun' campaign positioning launched at the end of 2004.
Read more...Hallgarten has taken on the agency for one of Canada's leading Icewine producers, Pelee Island Winery in Ontario.
Philosopher, writer and composer Roger Scruton has heavily criticised screwcapped wines, claiming they reduce wine to an alcopop'.
Read more...Islay distillery Bruichladdich is to launch an 84.5% abv whisky - the first triple-distilled Islay malt for more than 300 years.
Read more...IVINI Ltd, the specialist importer and wholesaler of wine to the UK on-trade and independent retailers, has added the Highbank 2001 Coonawarra Red to its premium-wine portfolio.
Read more...Sopexa UK's managing director Franois Collache has left the promotions group after nine years in the role.
Read more...The new owner of Unwins, DM Private Equity, has sent a morale-boosting letter to all staff, in a bid to improve the multiple specialist's fortunes.
Read more...A total of 11 wines have been awarded the coveted five-star rating in the 2006 John Platter South African Wine Guide.
Read more...Leading marketing information gatherer AC Nielsen is to include full EPOS data from Majestic, Morrisons, Marks & Spencer, and Unwins for the first time.
Wine investment company Bordeaux Vintners Ltd, trading as BVI, has ceased trading. Tim Dunton, the sole director, wrote to investors on 22 July telling them that not all the wine they had paid for was available due to the failure of one of his suppliers.
The British Government is being sued for 14 million by a British family which made its name in the Port trade.
Read more...The organiser of the English Wine and Regional Food Festival claims that top English sparklers like RidgeView and Nyetimber are equal to if not better than the best Champagnes.
Hungary is the most significant producer of wine among both new EU states and the next-round hopefuls, Bulgaria and Romania. Even though the country has only 87,000 hectares (ha) of vineyards, compared to just under 90,000ha of Vitis vinifera in Romania and a similar area in Bulgaria, its wine production dwarfs that of its neighbours at some 4.8 million hectolitres in 2004 (Romania produced around 3.4 million hl and Bulgaria just 1.4 million hl in the same year). In spite of this, Hungary's reputation as a wine-producing nation has fallen off most consumers' radar (if it was ever really there).
Read more...Top German red producer August Kesseler called the UK the most sophisticated' market for Pinot Noir last week but said it would be a long time' before German producers of the noble grape could gain a significant foothold. Kesseler, of Weingut August Kesseler, was speaking at what was billed as the first ever German red wine symposium', organised by German wine specialist Wine Barn at London's Capital Hotel on 19 August.
Exports of New Zealand wines have surpassed domestic sales for the first time in the industry's history, according to the 2005 Annual Report from New Zealand Wine Growers, with wine destined for foreign markets now accounting for 53% of production.
